A career as physicist requires long and hard training at school, college and graduate school, but offers the rewards of a non-repetitive and highly-creative job in academia. Jobs in academia are often short- or medium-term position with few indefinite contracts, but this possible shortcoming is compensated by continuous exposure to cutting-edge technology, international working environment and on-the-field training in problem solving. All those represent precious assets for career switching at a later stage in life. Many Physicists are trained since college to solve any kind of problems assigned to them -as opposed to college training or other professionals which is more of a passive intake of information rather than a creative solution of problems. This makes them apt to evolve in management positions, finance positions or in general in the information technology sector.
I would strongly recommend this career to anyone inclined in the science but would dissuade those with low marks in math and physics as from high school: the learning curve into college will be too hard.
What has to be known before starting is that there are few position in academia but physicists easily find employment in other fields and there is a now very remunerative career in medical physics: designing, building, selling or operating imaging devices for hospitals and private health-care institutions.
I love this being a physicist and would recommend it to anyone that is seriously considering it. That being said, I would not recommend it to individuals that aren't fascinated and driven with scientific curiosity. The job requires years of hard work beyond completing graduate school and the financial reward is not equal to the amount of work required. The salary is decent but if money is on the mind a career somewhere else would be much better.
If I had to do it again I certainly would choose the same career. Personally, the job is great for me because I have gotten to the point where I can control how much I work and what I want to research. I can not describe the feeling I get knowing that I am getting paid to satiate my curiosity. Its like paying a teenager to hang out at the mall, I just love it. Some things people may not realize about my career is how transferable it is. If grant money can't be found doing pure research many, many companies will hire physicists for great pay to work for them. Physicists are sought after for their analytical abilities and obviously for their knowledge related to science, math, and researching. The skills are so transferable that I have even heard of physicists being offered positions as highly paid accountants (all for their math ability).
To become a physicist is difficult. To remain a successful physicist, without being turned into an engineer, a lawyer, a stock market modeler, or some other profession which makes use of only part of the problem solving training of a physicist is much more difficult. Although there are many people who make successful careers based on a physics degree, there are very few who make a career in physics research. Despite that, physics is so much fun that, for many, the risk is acceptible.
